By Jason Clay Jansky

Otto Kaiser Memorial Hospital will be a bit brighter and more fun for sick kids that have to spend time there.

It’s all thanks to a sick kid who got better and her little sister.

Sophia Bianchi had a virus a few months ago that got worse than her mother and father Cletus and Daphne Bianchi would have liked. After spending some time recovering inside room 205 at Otto Kaiser Memorial Hospital, she decided the place just needed more for kids to do.

Her and her little sister Marina decided to do something about it. They held a bake sale fund-raiser at the hospital hoping to raise a bit of money to buy some additional kids videos for room 205.

The response was overwhelming.

They sold out of baked goods the first day before 11 a.m. People kept arriving wanting to buy more to help out. One of them was Gil Lozano of the [Thunder Riders] biker group.

There wasn’t anything left to eat, but he made a donation of $250, anyway.

"I thought (Sophia and Marina) were going to make $100. We were blown away. I was amazed," Cletus Bianchi said.

They also accepted donations from Matt Jauer, Phil Bakke, and their respective families.

The girls ended up presenting $545 worth of donations. What started out as an attempt to get more movies for the kids room at the hospital turned into a charity shopping spree.

Kiddy chairs and a table, a bookcase loaded with youth reading material, 51 DVD and videocassette tape movies, bed covers, and a red plastic wagon were presented to the hospital August 31.

The goal was to make room 205 feel more like a fun guest bedroom than a typical hospital bed. The bed covers will replace the traditional hospital bed sheets, and the wagon will be used instead of a wheelchair to transport kids across the hospital.

Coupled with the youth-oriented décor added to the room back in 2001, the new additions make the room a fun-looking place for young boys and girls.

"We don’t have many pediatric patients here, but when we do, we put them in room 205. It was back in 2001 that we had an employee suggest that we decorate that room where it would be more accommodating to kids. That really sparked a lot of ideas and excitement," hospital Administrator Nancy Kinkler said. "She (Sophia) had the suggestion that we needed new movies and some other things to do. The response to the fund-raiser was huge, so they were able to do a lot more than movies and books."

The project won’t be the end for room 205, either. Kinkler said plans will always be in the works to help make a stay at Otto Kaiser Memorial Hospital as fun and comfortable as possible for sick and injured children.